The Grain of Dust Part 29

"And they rattle on to beat the band when they get a chance at a man like you. Do you know what they're saying?"

"Certainly. Loosen these straps in the back of my waistcoat--the upper ones, won't you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She glanced complacently down at her softly glistening shoulders."]

As she fussed with the buckles she said: "But you don't know that they say you're going to pieces--neglecting your cases--keeping away from your office--wasting about half of your day with your lady love. They say that you have gone stark mad--that you are rushing to ruin."

"A little looser. That's better. Thanks."

"And everyone's wondering when Josephine will hear and go on the rampage. She's so proud and so stuck on herself that they're betting she'll give you the bounce."

"Well--" getting into his coat--"you'd delight in that. For you don't like her."

"Oh--so--so," replied Ursula. "She's all right, as women go. You know we women don't ever think any too well of each other. We're 'on.' Now, I'm frank to admit I'm not worth the powder to blow me up. I can't do anything worth doing. I don't know anything worth knowing--except how to dress and make a fool of an occasional man. I'm not a good house-keeper, nor a good wife--and I'd as lief go to jail for two years as have a baby. But I admit I'm n. g. Most women are as poor excuses as I am, yet they think they're _grand_!"

Norman, standing before his sister and smiling mysteriously, said: "My dear Urse, let me give you a great truth in a sentence. The value of anything is not its value to itself or in itself, but its value to some one else. A woman--even as incompetent a person as you----"

"Or Josephine."

"--or Josephine--may seem to some man to be pricelessly valuable. And if she happens to seem so to him, why, she _is_ so."

"Meaning--Jersey City?"

His eyes glittered curiously. "Meaning Jersey City," he said.

A long silence. Then Ursula: "But suppose Josephine hears?"

He stood beside the doorway, waiting for her to pa.s.s out. His face expressed nothing. "Let's go down. I'm hungry. We were talking about it this afternoon."

"You and Jo!"

"Josephine and I."

"And it's all right?"

"Why not?"

"You fooled her?"

"I don't stoop to that sort of thing."

"No, indeed," she laughed. "You rise to heights of deception that would make anyone else giddy. Oh, I'd give anything to have heard."

"There's nothing to deceive about," said he.

She shook her head. "You can't put it over me, Fred. You've never before made a fool of yourself about a woman. I'd like to see her. I suppose I'd be amazed. I've observed that the women who do the most extraordinary things with men are the most ordinary sort of women."

"Not to the men," said he bitterly. "Not while they're doing it."

"Does _she_ seem extraordinary to _you_ still?"

He thrust his hands deep in his pockets. "What you heard is true. I'm letting everything slide--work--career--everything. I think of nothing else. Ursula, I'm mad about her--mad!"

She threw back her head, looked at him admiringly. Never had she so utterly worshiped this wonderful, powerful brother of hers. He was in love--really--madly in love--at last. So he was perfect! "How long do you think it will hold, Fred?" she said, all sympathy.

"G.o.d knows!"

"Yet--caring for her you can go on and marry another woman!"

He looked at his sister cynically. "You wouldn't have me marry _her_, would you?"

"Of course not," protested she hastily. Her pa.s.sion for romance did not carry her to that idiocy. "You couldn't. She's a sort of working girl--isn't she?--anyhow, that cla.s.s. No, you couldn't marry her. But how can you marry another woman?"

"How could I give up Josephine?--and give her up probably to Bob Culver?"

Ursula nodded understandingly. "But--what are you going to do?"

"How should I know? Perhaps break it off when I marry--if you can call it breaking off, when there's nothing to break but--me."

"You don't mean--" she cried, stopping when her tone had carried her meaning.

He laughed. "Yes--that's the kind of d.a.m.n fool I've been."

"You must have let her see how crazy you were about her."

"Was anyone ever able to hide that sort of insanity?"

Ursula gazed wonderingly at him, drew a long breath. "You!" she exclaimed. "Of all men--you!"

"Let's go down."

"She must be a deep one--dangerous," said Ursula, furious against the woman who was daring to resist her matchless brother. "Fred, I'm wild to see her. Maybe I'd see something that'd help cure you."

"You keep out of it," he replied, curtly but not with ill humor.

"It can't last long."

"It'd do for me, if it did."

"The marriage will settle everything," said Ursula with confidence.

"It's got to," said he grimly.

XI